Friday, January 11, 2013

Last night we went back to volleyball, with an 8:10 game. Tia and I showed up, along with everyone on our team and we had 7 to start the game.

And we sucked.

It was bad. I think we served and promptly dropped 8 or 9 points. It wasn’t any particular person, but all of us making mistakes. Mishits, poor sets, watching balls between us. It was a combined effort of failure from all of us. I had a couple really poor hits at different times, just missing. Near the end of the first game, 42-9, I was looking, just hoping we’d break double digits. We got to 11 and lost.

The second game wasn’t better. We were down 18-2 or something like that, having yet to rotate in one of our players when we finally scored a few points, not getting to 10. The third game we won, much closer, and it seemed as though we’d just warmed up.

Afterwards Tia and I stopped by McD’s to get a drink and head home. We were talking about the game, and both a little frustrated when one of the players called us. She’s playing solo (the rest are couples) and we don’t know her well, but her daughter was on Kendall’s team in the fall for the first time. She said her church had a late night group and they were playing and did we want to join them.

We did and I turned the car around, heading down near Kyle’s old high school. They have a gym in the LDS church there, and we shook a few hands, saw some people around our ages (30s, 40s) and started a 5 on 5 game. It expanded to 7 on 6 eventually, with one team rotating people in an out.

We had a blast, playing until 11:15 or so. It was competitive, all the games close, with some really hard hitters. Men going all out spiking balls, and some older women doing their best. We played three hit ball, bump, set, spike and that was the most fun I’ve had in years playing sports. We really laughed, joked, but competed.

I knew I was getting worn out and sat out around 10:30. I was ready to go home, but Tia wanted to play, so I watched a game. They convinced me to come in for one last game, and I was the setter, not jumping, just pushing the ball up.

We loved it, and we’re hoping we can go back again and play. That was much better than the league, and I’d love to just play there every week, if my body holds up.